Momentum is overrated

Momentum is the next good shift, the next penalty killed, the next big hit

June 20, 2013|Dan McNeil

If you've been consuming coverage of the Blackhawks-Bruins Stanley Cup Final, you've read and heard a lot about momentum.

The Hawks had it, then lost it. The Bruins had momentum slip through their fingers because the previously impenetrable Tuukka Rask allowed six goals in Wednesday's series equalizer at TD Garden.

Team Wirtz, some insist, enters Saturday's Game 5 with "the big Mo."

Don't believe it. The Hawks played more like the Hawks in Game 4, but the win only affords them a couple days to answer questions about success instead of failure.

Jonathan Toews doesn't have to be reminded of his one postseason goal because he finally scored his second. Marian Hossa doesn't have to explain why he was a mysterious scratch in Game 3. Or how irrelevant a former player who questioned his manhood is.

Conversely, the Bruins must explain what went wrong with the stingiest defense in the NHL and how those issues will be resolved.

Momentum is the next good shift. The next penalty killed. The next big hit. (Speaking of bone-crunching contact, if there has been a more delicious hit than the one Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk put on Patrick Sharp with the old-school hip check, please let me know.)

After the Blackhawks took the opener in thrilling fashion, erasing a 3-1 third period deficit and winning it on Andrew Shaw's goal in the third overtime, the talk was that the Bruins would be devastated and wiped out emotionally as much as they were physically. The Hawks possessed a gluttonous amount of momentum heading into Game 2.

How did that work out?

Yeah, the Hawks peppered Rask early in the second game, but what did that and the ever-so-important momentum ultimately get them? One goal in the next two games, a 2-1 series deficit and the loss of home ice advantage.

In Wednesday's Game 4, playing as desperately as they have this spring, the Blackhawks dictated tempo for the first five minutes. Then came an interference call on Johnny Oduya for the game's first power play.

Momentum Boston. Or not.

Michal Handzus scored a short-handed goal to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.

Momentum Chicago. But for how long?

Rich Peverley tied it at 1-1 late in the period. As much as Chicago outplayed the hosts, they went to the dressing room dead even.

Bruins coach Claude Julien, who was behind the bench when Boston won the Stanley Cup in 2011, never suggested his club possessed momentum. .

"You always have to focus on the game that you're going to play that night," Julien said before Game 4. "I'm not looking at it as 'we've got momentum now that we won the last two.' I don't believe in that."

Nor should he. Nor should you.

With the win, the Blackhawks evened the series and regained home-ice advantage. They spared themselves of crafting an epitaph from those who write and comment on the series.

That's it. When the puck drops for Game 5 Saturday night at the United Center, momentum will be with the team that wins the opening draw.